NotSheep

I completely forgot to blog what happened on Friday afternoon - not that it was very exciting or anything, but then most of what I wrote about last week wasn’t very exciting anyway, so I might as well put it in

Scratchy had the afternoon off because Toby had a speech therapy appointment. The SALT was able to get a bit more of an idea than she did last time, because last time he slept through the appointment I took Barney with me, figuring Toby would sit and play with him instead of being all aware of how the SALT was watching him, and it worked well. She gave us some games we can play with him to encourage him to make sounds, and said she’d review again in November.

Afterwards we went to look at those boxes that keep things cold - I’m almost afraid to write the word now, I’ve gone on about it so long. We went into one shop where a salesperson - no, I won’t call him that. Where a male about 19 years old who thought he was a salesperson tried to… hm, well I’m not really sure what he was trying to do. It didn’t look much like selling anything. We should have realised when we saw his name-tag; who uses the name “Deano” professionally? He did show us a few you-know-whats, then, without asking anything about our needs, he said, “Is it really worth all that just to live the American lifestyle?” Well, uh, I’m not trying to live the American lifestyle, I’m just trying to buy a you-know-what that’s big enough to feed a family with five growing sons without buying groceries every day. His next question was “Are you into all that saving the earth stuff?” He then told us a long story about how one particular electronics manufacturer is better than all the others when it comes to the environment; apparently they’ve got a factory run completely on solar power or something. All of which might have been interesting if that particular manufacturer actually made you-know-whats, but they don’t

Just when we thought he couldn’t get any worse, he said, “I’ll tell you what.” - we didn’t realise immediately, but his “what” was a great big load of rubbish. “Here I am,” he said, “Nineteen years old, good job, beautiful girlfriend, love her and all, and I’m going to jack it all in to go with my mate to Glasgow and sleep on a floor.”

Er, right… I did try to suggest that we weren’t actually that bothered by saying “I’m struggling to see what this has to do with us buying a fridge” - but he didn’t take the hint, oh no, he told us all about his plans and asked our opinion.

After all that I’d have bought almost any you-know-what from any shop, just to ensure I didn’t have to go back and deal with him again. It’s lucky Scratchy was there, really, because who’d believe me if I hadn’t had a witness?

We did sort of decide on what we were going to buy, but, well, y’know, it’s not the first time…

George had a rough start yesterday morning; I think he’d fought with just about everybody he lives with before 9 a.m. To protect - well, someone, maybe him, maybe the rest of the family - I took him with me when I went out on errands. Do I really need to tell you what my errands involved? You all know what I was looking for. Oh, and paint too

Half an hour after we left, I’d had a re-think about the decision we’d made yesterday, but not enough of a re-think to actually buy anything. I had more success at the paint-shop, finding exactly what I was looking for - so after coming home and having some lunch, I set about cleaning, pasting and painting the powder-room. With one coat completed, it was already looking much better. I did a second coat this morning, but didn’t have quite enough paint, so I’ll have to go to get some more (which unfortunately means a 40-ish mile round trip). I won’t be doing that this week though, because after lunch we changed our plans for the next couple of days: we had intended to drive up to the caravan on Monday after Scratchy finished work, but we decided to just pack and go today instead.

We need a mini-bus. Seven people, two dogs, equipment for all of the previous for five days plus four bikes and a tricycle… well, let’s just say the acceleration on the car wasn’t quite as good as usual

We got to the caravan to find our friend J still here. She was preparing to leave, but since she wasn’t expecting us to arrive until tomorrow she was a bit startled when I sneaked up on her

The dogs were tied to the deck while we carried in our bags; Andie pulled hard enough to break the catch on her collar. Fortunately I’d a spare collar with me - a half-check collar, so not ideal, but it will do for Cassie for the next few days, and I’ve adjusted the size of Cassie’s downwards so that it fits Andie.

So here we are, in the caravan, in the rain. The weather forecast for the rest of the week is better; I hope it’s right.

Scratchy left very early this morning to drive straight to work; Barney had slept in the living-room but was a bit cold by morning so came in to warm up in the warm spot left by Scratchy. He snuggled up with Toby, lay there with a very contented smile on his face and told me, “I think this is the best feeling in the world.” A while later he said he couldn’t decide what he liked more: playing with Toby when he was awake or cuddling with Toby when he was asleep

The boys were all awake and looking for breakfast shortly after 7 a.m. We all got fed, cleaned, tidied up and went down to the beach. There were a couple of people down there with dogs: the early crowd - the people who walk their dogs before they go to work. By about 8.30, we were the only people left. It was windy down there, but dry and not at all unpleasant. After 9, the not-quite-so-early crowd - the people who walk their dogs after leaving their children at school - started to arrive. I say “crowd”; I really mean three or four people along the whole beach (about a kilometre stretch), so it wasn’t exactly heaving. There was a woman with a black dog who ran straight into the water and was followed - part-way - by our dogs; I’ve been trying to get them into the water since June, but they’re scaredy-dogs so I was happy to see this. I got chatting to the woman; it turned out her family had just recently moved to the area, and before that she’d lived near the town where we used to live. In fact it turned out she’d lived right where I used to lead Beavers - and her youngest son had been in Cubs with Barney

After leaving the beach we walked up to the shop in town - by which I do mean “the shop in town” - there’s only one. There’s a chippy and a take-away, plus a small hotel and a hairdresser; I think that’s about it. Oh, there’s a butcher and what might be the world’s smallest bakery too. But if you want to buy milk and toilet-paper, there’s only one place to go, so that’s where we went On the way back, Freddy, grumpy about something (who knows what - he seems to be doing Kevin the Teenager these days, despite being eight years old), dragged the bag with the milk in it along the ground and burst the bottle - so he had to carry it upside-down the rest of the way, and then I had to search out containers to pour it into. Great stuff.

Toby is now riding about on his tricycle, supervised by Barney, who is also pretending the old-fashioned telephone box next to the playground is a Tardis. The others are all out on their bikes or in the playground (which is about thirty metres from the caravan). The dogs are asleep on the deck, wiped out from charging up and down the beach this morning. The sun is shining and there’s nobody else around. This is the life

There’s a woman who lives in the same town we do, and who has a caravan just around the corner from ours. She has a miniature schnauzer which she walks past our caravan numerous times a day. When we were here before, we chatted with her a few times, but now I can’t remember her name. I’ve been trying to think of it since I saw her this morning, hoping that it would come to me before I had to apologise and ask her to tell me again.

I’ve just heard Jack outside the caravan, saying “Hey! Hey! My mum doesn’t know your name!”

It was a bit rainy this morning, so we stayed in the caravan for more time than usual. It’s not a very big caravan, but that doesn’t usually matter, since we’re in and out so much and spend so much time at the beach or playground or just generally around the site. When we do stay in on a day like today though, we do start to feel a bit on top of each other. The boys did some educational stuff we’d brought up - some maths and German for Barney, some French for Freddy and George. They also watched some television for a bit, then when the weather dried up a bit we went to the beach with the dogs. We saw what we thought were jellyfish - dozens of them, all over the beach, presumably because the tide had just gone out; normally I’d have googled to find out if they really were jellyfish, but since there’s no internet access at the caravan, that wasn’t an option. Later googling confirmed our analysis

When I say no internet access, I really mean it. To get on-line, I’d have to drive about 10 miles into the nearest big town and go to the library - which has lots of sites blocked, including my webmail There isn’t even a wireless network in town that I can steal a few megs of bandwidth from (I’ve tried! LOL)

The afternoon was spent around the site, on bikes or in the playground. At one point when we were inside, Barney looked at the glued-together jigsaw which is on the wall above the table - it’s the cover of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album - and asked, “Which one of them is Elton John?”

Since the dogs are able to leap over the fence around the deck, I hooked their leads around the slats to keep them contained. That worked until Andie chewed through her lead - well, I assume she did, since the lead was in fine condition this morning and when I found it on the deck it was in two pieces. So that’s one lead and one collar she’s destroyed this week. Fortunately we have both a lead-doubler (which lets me walk both dogs on one lead) and the retractable leads with us.

When we were tidying up before bed and I was changing Toby, I left the pups on the deck gnawing on bones, the caravan door open so I could hear them. Until I realised I couldn’t hear them anymore. I then spent 45 minutes running around the site looking for them, with several other people from the site helping, including three teenaged boys on bicycles, who’d offered to help after I’d asked if they’d seen them. Another dog-owner from the site went out into the town and down to the beach in case they’d gone that way - I didn’t really think they’d have left the site but it was a possibility. I was just starting to get really worried when Barney rang me to tell me that they had arrived back at the caravan on their own.

I went back to the caravan and got everyone settled down and had a shower. I was just nursing Toby to sleep when there was a knock at the door - the site owner. I was ready for him to complain about the dogs running wild, but in fact he wasn’t worried about that at all. He’d found two teenage boys around the site and they’d claimed to be helping someone look for their dogs; he didn’t believe them, so they brought him to me so I could confirm their story. I was glad to do so, as they’d been doing a great job of searching for the dogs, even if they didn’t actually find them in the end. They weren’t pleased about being accused, but I could see both sides; the site owner was only trying to do his job.

Wasn’t this supposed to be the quiet life?

Today was spent just hanging out, relaxing and playing. In the afternoon while Toby was napping, Scratchy fell asleep too, so I took the dogs and all the other boys and we headed to the beach, with bicycles. The boys flew up and down the beach on their bikes, in and out of the water - Jack included; nobody would ever guess he’d only been on two wheels for 24 hours. They got soaking wet and covered in sand and had an absolutely wonderful time. There are a couple of huge puddles (perhaps ten metres long) at the bottom of the drive to the beach and they were shocked when I suggested they ride straight through them - but it’s fun, and they were soaking and filthy anyway, so I figured they might as well

This morning I left most of the family at the caravan while I walked the dogs on the beach, along with Jack and his bicycle. When we got back we had lunch, packed and cleaned the place up, ready for our friends to arrive this afternoon. We then went into town and bought huge ice-creams before heading for home. Scratchy drove home, but I don’t remember the journey - I slept through the entire thing

We got home to a telephone call to say our new refrigerator is being delivered on Monday - which means I’ll have to move the aquarium this weekend, which means I’ll have to tidy out the dining-room, or somewhere else to put it. I also have plans to replace dog-collars and leads, as well as buying more paint and finishing the powder-room - it will be a busy weekend!

My planned busy weekend got even busier late last night when I got a text message from my Group Scout Leader to remind me that we had plans to clean up the Scout Hall today - I’d completely forgotten about it. So I had to shift forwards my plans to go buy paint and leads/collars for the dogs. I left the house at about 8.30, taking Barney with me, since a) he was in the mood to wind up his siblings; b) I figured he’d be able to help with the Great Scout Hall Clean-Up; and c) he’s quite good company for driving

We got the paint, then the leads and collars (and a couple of extras, as there were lots on clearance), then went to the Scout Hall and worked our little buns off for about three hours. The hall looks a lot better, and with any luck it will have a new roof, windows and toilets at some point in the next few weeks, which will make it all better still

We’re home now and I’m about to walk the dogs and then we’ll be getting ready to leave for the Last Night of the Proms

The lack of blogging in the past week is the result of a few days spent without internet access (willingly - the beach is even more appealing than the web LOL) followed by a couple of days of barely stopping to draw breath. I will write up what we’ve been doing soon!

Edit: Lots of new posts published below this one now!

A few months ago, I spotted a mention of the Last Night of the Proms event on the BBC website. One of the concerts was in our town, and it was free… so I ordered some tickets Although the event didn’t start until 8, the gates were to open at 6.30; we took a picnic and arrived at about 5.40 to find we were about 200th in line. We got a fabulous place to set up our chairs and picnic blanket and waited for the show to start - and it was so worth it The weather was glorious, the music was wonderful and the atmosphere was buzzing - a thoroughly good night. Toby got tired and cross about the lights that were shining in his eyes, so I nursed him and he fell asleep. Scratchy took him home, along with Freddy, who had got grumpy because I turned down his request for yet another packet of crisps, and who arrived home and threw up Barney, George, Jack and I stayed until the end of the show and watched the (excellent) fireworks display. George said, “I thought it would all be just one boring tune but it wasn’t, it was great!” Barney said, “Orchestral music isn’t half as bad as it is on the radio!”

Scratchy had taken a taxi home with Freddy and Toby, since we figured it would be more difficult to get one after the show, so we went off in search of the car, which Scratchy had parked it while we’d waited in the line to get in. It took us a while to find it, since it was not where he told me it was - not even in the same car-park!
We eventually found it and came home - exhausted, but happy

We’d a late start this morning - unsurprisingly - but I’ve finished painting the powder-room and started and finished painting the master bathroom. Apparently that slump is over

We’re trying to get back into some sort of routine here. As I’ve previously mentioned, the personalities in this family are such that a bit of structure to the day makes life smoother and everyone cheerier. Usually in summer we leave aside any kind of academic portion of that structure, partly because many of the children’s friends are out and about and available for playing and I don’t want to say they can’t go out until they’ve finished their geography, if you see what I mean. We’d probably have got back on track last week if we’d been here, but since we were off gallivanting on the beach, that didn’t happen. So this week, I’m trying to re-introduce that structure.

We started yesterday with a bit of sit-down-study for everyone, but by lunchtime the headache that had been bothering me all morning had turned into the can’t-cope-with-anything-right-now kind. Once the new refrigerator was delivered (yay), I took myself off to bed, and put the boys in charge of the remote control for the recorder in my bedroom. They spent the afternoon watching Doctor Who and Friends, and I spent it hiding under the covers and feeling dizzy and nauseous. I’ve had cluster headaches on and off for years, but I’m wondering if my more recent headaches are actually migraines. Whatever, they’re not fun. By yesterday evening I was feeling so weak that I warned Scratchy I might need him to stay home today.

(It’s at times like that that I decide I definitely don’t want to do pregnancy again. But then at other times, like when I’m sitting in front of a gorgeous six-week-old at the Proms, I decide I definitely do. )

By this morning I was feeling much better - still tired, but quite capable of standing up and moving around, which was a massive improvement. Freddy and George read their way through a book on medieval history, with Toby sitting on Freddy’s lap for much of the time. Barney is working his way through a Key Stage 4 French textbook, to “catch up” with George: Barney’s French, having developed over his 4.5 months in France, is obviously much better than George’s, but it’s a pretty good textbook and working at it is a) preparing him in case he sits French GCSE next Spring (which he wants to do) and b) keeping his French fresh - and I find it interesting that when he comes across something that doesn’t quite gel with his experience, he’ll say “We say…” - as in “We, the French…”

He’s also trying to catch up on the German that George and Freddy began while he was away, though since we only made it to about page 9 of the book, I don’t think that will take long

This evening was the first Beavers meeting of the year. I’d planned the programme for the entire year; most of it’s flexible but the first few weeks are a bit crammed-in, since there are quite a few things I wanted to get in before some of our Beavers move up to Cubs, and before the end of Scouting’s Centenary Year. I’m a bit frustrated by the undermining response from other leaders to any new ideas though. Tonights programme went well: I had a game already going as the Beavers arrived, so they could join in as they came in, rather than running around the hall without much supervision as they’ve been doing to date. We did the opening ceremony at about 6.40 (meetings start at 6.30), but that worked well because of the coming-in game and because there were some new Beavers to get information from before we got stuck in - seven new Beavers, in fact. If they all return - and I think at least six will (the seventh is one of those kids who’s already been everywhere and seen and done everything - he thinks) - we’ll have recruited 20 new Beavers in the past twelve months. That’s a fantastic accomplishment for a group that was at risk, this time last year, of having only two Beavers left once the older ones had moved up to Cubs. We’ll have four moving up to Cubs next month - and I’ll be sorry to see every one of them go, they’re all great kids. After the opening ceremony, we got them all paired off and went out for a “listening walk” - listening for all the different sounds around the area: birds, cars, planes, bicycle-brakes, car-radios, the sizzle of the fryer in the chippy Back at the hall, everyone washed their hands and we made fruit salad - and if I thought my own children could polish off an astonishing quantity of fruit in a very short time, it’s nothing to what went down tonight We’ve a good bunch of kids there; if all the leaders get on board and work as a team, we’re going to have a really good year. If not - well, we’ll probably still have a really good year, but I’ll have to do a lot of biting my tongue.

George, being ten years old now, is moving up from St John Ambulance Badgers to SJA Cadets, so he and Barney were off there this evening. The lack of a second car complicates Tuesdays slightly - we used to do a lot of running back and forth on a Tuesday to get everyone where they needed to be. I hope we’ve solved the problem for the next few months anyway: one of our new Beavers lives across the road from me - I’m going to take him to Beavers and bring him home, and in the meantime his mum will leave Barney and George to SJA just before I get back. Once Freddy moves up to Cubs, however, he might well want to go to Badgers on a Tuesday, and that will make it all ever-so-complicated again

For the first time this week, I was actually awake and functional all day long - certainly moreso than yesterday, which was largely spent almost-horizontal. George and Barney did go to Cubs and Scouts respectively in the evening, though George’s friend R didn’t make it, since he had too much homework. He’s in his last year of primary school, and his mum (a nursery teacher) spoke to his teacher, who told her that two hours a night is about right for that age. Astonishing.

Cubs and Scouts went well, apparently, and nobody brought any badges home to be sewn on, which is just as well since most of the last lot aren’t sewn on yet.

This morning George cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast (muttering all the time - he mutters a lot) while the others did their jobs around the house. Barney seemed particularly helpful this morning; the reason for that became clear later

By lunchtime George and Freddy had done some maths and Barney had worked through quite a bit of his French textbook; it’s mostly just refresher for him right now, but he’ll soon be at the same point as George (who’d gone ahead while Barney was away). I’m not sure how it’s going to work - maybe they’ll work together, or maybe Barney, not needing to absorb the vocabulary and structure, will forge ahead - but we’ll work it out when we get there. When Freddy went off to investigate what we could have for lunch, he reported back that there was nothing to eat. I was a bit disbelieving, and sure enough, investigation revealed a wide variety of options in the Big New Fridge alone, before even opening the cupboards. Lunch was more or less a fend-for-yourself affair; Barney was the last to eat and I had to laugh as he walked into the kitchen and announced, “Right, hand over the bread and nobody gets hurt!”

Scratchy did some errands for me at lunchtime - a shower and shower-rail that I hope will work in the boys’ bathroom (it’s too long for a standard curtain-pole) and a copy of Anne Frank’s Diary, since Barney and George are going to do a project on it. We’re reading Carrie’s War at the minute, then we’ll have a brief look at life in Europe during WWII, then read Anne Frank together.

Lunch over, I checked the post and discovered the renewal forms for the car insurance - for the car that went up in flames about a month ago. I rang the broker and reminded them that the vehicle wasn’t really in an insurable state any more…

After that I did some German with Barney while George finished his maths before we read some more of Carrie’s War. During the rest of the afternoon I realised that it’s almost a year since Henry arrived with us - this time last year we were moving furniture in preparation for his family coming. I also had most of my Christmas shopping done - it didn’t quite work out in the end, of course, due to Henry’s arrival, but it was still a sight more than I’ve done this year. I must speak to Scratchy and see when he can take a day off so that I can disappear to the shops - I don’t shop on weekends if I can possibly help it.

I noticed this morning that George was scratching his head in a sort of manic fashion, so thought a nit-check might be in order. On entering the kids’ bathroom, however, I was confronted by a huge spider - in the bath, so no immediate panic, but too big to wash down the plughole, so not leaving the bath usable - at least not if you’re me. I checked George’s head in the master bathroom instead, and the result of that was that everybody else got checked too. Trust me, sometimes negative is better than positive. And I’d certainly have preferred five negatives in a row to the five positives I got

While I was checking Barney, I realised how grown-up he’s becoming. He’s taller, his shoulders are broadening and becoming more muscular…and he told me he’s starting to get a bit interested in girls. Not that any girl will ever be good enough for him, of course He also asked if he could go to the youth-club tonight - aha! that explains the excessive helpfulness all day! Unfortunately when he went to walk C this evening and swung by his friend N’s house, he discovered that the youth-club isn’t on tonight. Why, he doesn’t know, because he didn’t think to ask. Is it just too early in the term? Is it cancelled for evermore? Is it running every night except Thusdays now? The mystery remains… and Barney’s had a shower for nothing

I’m sitting thinking, “Hm, I haven’t blogged in a couple of days” - and I look and discover it’s been four days. What gives?

Since Thursday then. Friday… er, no idea. I’ll come back and edit this bit if I remember.

I think I spent most of Saturday and Sunday working my way through books and various other educational resources (doesn’t that make it all sound very official/schooly/organised/insert-word-of-your-choice? - I could have just said “tidying the dining-room and going through the filing-cabinet”, y’know). I also went in search of light-pulls for the bathrooms, with no success. Have now ordered one from ebay; if I like it, I’ll order more from the same person. Oh, and also stopped at Casualty to see if there was any cause for concern with regards to the chest pains and palpitations I’ve been having. ECG and chest x-ray are normal, so pain is probably muscular, as I suspected. As for the palpitations, “see your GP”. I’ll get registered with a GP sometime, really I will.

Dealt with a bit of a tummy upset; apparently something’s been doing the rounds. The kid next door is sick, friends were sick all weekend. So far it’s only got me, and only mildly - let’s hope that’s where it stops. I really don’t fancy dealing with five upchucking children.

Taking sublingual B12, as experiencing some of the symptoms I experienced a few years ago when it was discovered (after I’d suffered for many months) that I had a dangerously low B12 level.

Watched the first episode of Torchwood. Not sure if the kids should watch it or not. Will wait until I’ve seen another couple of episodes before I chance getting them hooked.

Had a planning meeting with my co-leaders from Beavers this morning; there seemed to be a little more enthusiasm than previously. We reckon that we’ll be at 25 Beavers very shortly, which is one more than our limit, but four of them will be moving to Cubs next month so we’ll run with it for now. Great to see such an increase in numbers - I know I keep going on about it, but I’m just so pleased that we recruited so well last year and ran a programme that kept them all coming back and bringing their mates Freddy will be among those going up to Cubs, but Jack will be invested the same night; nothing like keeping it in the family

Today: education, education, education (only in this case, I really mean it). The boys did some French (Barney and Freddy), German (Barney, George and Freddy), maths (Barney and Freddy), science (Barney and George), story-planning (George) and reading (Jack). Toby drew and generally tortured everyone else

Barney went off to the youth-club tonight, for the first time since he went to France. There are two other boys on our street who go sometimes, but neither of them was home this evening; Barney decided to go on his own anyway. He surprises me sometimes. I dropped him off shortly before 7, then rang just after 8 to make sure everything was okay - it was. Scratchy has gone to collect him.

George and Freddy went to ju-jitsu; Freddy needed a bit of encouragement, but only a bit, and he had a great time. George had a good time too; I’m worried about him generally though - he doesn’t seem to be coping with things at all well just now, and I’m considering asking the paed who periodically sees Toby if I can have a chat with her about him. Not sure she’s the right person, but she’s the only access to the system I’ve got just now; Even if we were registered with a GP, I doubt they’d be any more useful. I spoke to the Cub leader this evening and requested that George stay in Cubs another year - he was to have moved up to Scouts in November or December, but I’m quite certain it wouldn’t be the right thing for him.

While they were in ju-jitsu, I went off and collected some house-plants from a woman on freecycle. I know that one of them is a spider-plant, but I’ve no idea about the rest. I’ll post photos here and see if anyone can identify them. I don’t exactly have green thumbs, but heck, might as well try. If the spider-plant survives my ministrations, it’ll look good draping down the side of the huge new fridge.

Thinking about Christmas and considering buying just a Wii. I discussed it with a friend who’s had one since last Christmas, and she recommends: a second controller, two nunchuks, an accessories pack, Wii Play, a Zelda game, a Sonic-and-something game, a Raving Rabbit (or something like that) game. That should spend all our money nicely, but if you’ve got a Wii and have thoughts and/or recommendations on the subject, please comment.

Barney has just arrived home from the youth-club; he played football, pool and PS2 and watched a tv programme about the Hindeburg, apparently. Sounds like a good evening for a twelve-year-old boy. He’s just gone into my bathroom to retrieve his toothbrush and - for the first time - noticed the lighthouse light we can see from the window. We’ve only lived here for two-and-a-bit years And he wanted to know how Scratchy proposed, “to get hints”. When asked if he had anyone in mind, he thought for a minute and answered, “not particularly”

Today I received a page from Freddy with the words, “things i,d like for christmas” at the top. Freddy’s not really bothered about punctuation

Barney perceived this to be a good idea, and I soon received a note from him (in remarkably good handwriting for Barney!), which began, “Dear Mr. S. Claus” He signed off with “Cheers” followed by his name and what looked like a row of horseshoes. When asked what they were about, he explained that they were hugs, but with Santa being so fat, it wouldn’t be possible to get your arms all the way around him, so he’d left a gap

I must admit I’m quite enjoying being the parent of a twelve-year-old today. (And I know that now I’ve written that, I’ll probably pay for it later!)

Cubs and Scouts tonight, and all the scarves are in such a state that even I, queen of the-creases-will-drop-out, feel they must be ironed. Bah!

I’m leaving you all, but never fear, I’ll be back.

Off to the caravan in the hope of a late summer. Well no, not really - even I’m not that optimistic. But we’re off the ocean and the beach anyway, so unless some kind soul there has set up an unsecured wireless connection (I am that optimistic LOL) I’ll be back after the weekend. Behave yourselves

My children are getting quite good at this packing-to-go-away-for-a-few-days thing. I do wish, though, that they’d worry a bit less about which Yugi-Oh decks and GameBoy games they’re taking and think a bit more about counting pairs of socks. 0.5 pairs of socks, anyone?

We left on Thursday morning after getting everything packed into the car and visiting the butcher for our weekly dog-food collection (lots this week - about 30kg). Shortly after we arrived at the caravan, just after we’d got everything into the van, the wind and rain started. After an hour or so the weather improved and we went to the playground for a while before going to the shop for some provisions and cash. There’s only one cash-machine in town and it’s one of those where you pay a fee, so I always go to the post office in the back of the shop for my money - except that it turns out that it closes at lunchtime on a Thursday. And the cash-machine was out of service. And I needed cash to pay for a gas cylinder, since ours were empty. Without gas, we’d have no cooking, no heat, and no hot water (apart from what we could boil in the kettle). Fortunately the guy working the caravan site was willing to give me credit until Friday

The weather was wet and windy in the evening too, so the boys watched a movie before bed. Overnight the weather continued to be wild, but by Friday things were looking much better. I realised, while the bagels were toasting, that we’d nothing to spread on them, so I had a quick early-morning run back to the shop. After tidying up, we - kids, dogs and me - went to the beach. I got some money from the post office on the way back, then we spent the early part of the afternoon inside playing cards, since it was raining again. The boys had asked to learn how to play poker - well I didn’t know, but we found a book of card-games and taught ourselves. We had no poker-chips so we played with pennies, and when I realised we needed more than we had, I sent Barney to the post-office with four pound coins, to ask for pennies. I didn’t think to tell him to take a bag to carry the coins in, and he didn’t think to ask for one in the shop, so the poor kid cycled back with his trousers nearly falling down due to the weight in his pockets

Later in the afternoon Barney and George headed to the games-room while Freddy and Jack went to the playground. Once Scratchy arrived (he was going to take the train, but someone from work who lives near the site drove him instead), we had dinner, then the boys went back out to play again for a while before coming back for more poker

I had forgotten, until this weekend, quite how much it hurts when you fall and bang your knees. And boy, does it hurt

I had just left the caravan on Saturday to walk to the shop with Cass; George decided to come with me but to take his bicycle. That would have been fine, except that in zooming around on his bike, he zoomed in front of me, between me and the dog. I went down, hard. I thought I was past having skinned hands and scabby knees, but I’ve got those and a fine selection of bruises.

Apart from that it was a fairly typical weekend-at-the-caravan. For the kids: playground, games room, bicycles, football. For the adults: feeding kids, walking dogs, drinking tea. The only atypical thing was that the boys taught me to play Yugi-Oh - and if ever there was a more wretched, complicated and frustrating game, I really don’t want to know. I now understand why they can play it for hours on end - that’s how long it takes!

We had a look at the boys on their respective bicycles and realised that George, Freddy and Jack were all out-growing theirs. When we arrived home on Sunday afternoon, we took a closer look. We’d an extra bicycle in the garage, red and white and almost as big as Barney’s, to which George has now graduated. Freddy has, with some effort on our part, been convinced to leave his red-and-black bicycle behind and take over George’s blue one - this will be his first time with gears, and since the gears aren’t working properly, I’ll have to get into the bike-shop to see if they can fix them. It will also require him to learn how to brake with actual brake-levers - his old bike was of the pedal-backwards-to-stop kind. Jack, having left his training-wheels behind just a couple of weeks ago, has moved onto Freddy’s old bike, which is a much better size for him, and maybe he’ll learn to pedal backwards to brake one day soon too.

Today we tried to have a pyjama-day - Jack is sick, and George was in with me during the night, scared by a nightmare, and nobody really wanted to get moving. The pj plan didn’t quite work though, since the plumber, who was due to arrive at 3.30, knocked on the door at 10.30 instead. How often do you hear someone complaining about a plumber arriving five hours early? Oh well, at least the fridge is plumbed in now. Still haven’t found a new place for the computer though…

I’ve just received a letter from Japan, from Y, one of the Scouts who stayed with us in July (see the posts from about July 24th if you’re new here), and from his mother.

From Y:

Dear Deborahis family
I’m very happy to be your family and very glad to be there.
I really had good experience on home stay time.
Heepy healthy and have a good time.
Thank you.
Y

And from his mother:

Dear Deborah
Helle, how are you? It took me long to write you to thank you for taking care of my son in World Jamboree. I think he had uneasy feeling and was tense by first time long term stay in foreign country. He told me that he was able to be relaxed by consideration and the gentleness of you all. He love to be with kids then I’m so glad to hear that he enjoyed visiting many places and had a good time with your family. I’m sorry that I couldn’t answer your phone call when he was with you. I wasn’t home that time for work.
I think this experience to be a very precious thing for him.
I hope you and your family will have many precious thing and happiness.
Thank you again.
Sincerely, Eiko

We too are very happy that we had to the opportunity to have Y and the other Scouts here with us

(And for those wondering about the title, Arri ga to = thank you :-))

Yet another catch-up post; I don’t know if you’re tired of these by now, but I certainly am

Jack didn’t eat much all day on Monday - he managed about a slice of toast in the early afternoon and then a piece of shortbread when he woke up about 10.30 pm, but otherwise he mostly slept or wailed. After the rest of us had dinner, Freddy banged his head while he was leaping over a chair or something. He never seems to move anywhere in a normal fashion - there’s always a certain amount of flinging himself involved. He wasn’t badly-injured, but decided he didn’t want to go to ju-jitsu “in case I get hurt again”. George then decided he was too tired to go, so he got ready for bed - but when Scratchy called to the two of them, “Are you ready?”, Freddy was…

Barney, meanwhile, was heading off to the youth club. Scratchy left the house at 9.20 to pick him up, but discovered a flat tyre. I phoned Barney, and the woman who runs the club offered to bring him home as long as it was okay with us.

Scratchy took Tuesday morning off so he could sort out a new tyre for the car, which was beyond repair (they think it exploded!?!) and apparently it’s a fairly unusual size or something, so not necessarily as simple as popping into the local tyre place. We tracked one down and he went off to get it fixed, then, since he was around, I took the opportunity to run a couple of errands. Jack still wasn’t feeling great - slightly better but still unwell, so we left Barney at home looking after him - by which I mean the two of them lay on my bed and watched television. I went to buy scissors for Beavers - the scissors we had were all well past their use-by date, and now that we have lots more Beavers (have I mentioned that before? LOL), we have enough subs coming in that we can afford replacements. At Beavers in the evening we had some games and decorated hand-shapes (for the Great Big Left Handshake), then had a little party for one of our Beavers whose family is moving away. I’m sorry to see him go, he’s a lovely kid. I took Barney and George with me to Beavers, because the neighbour who has been leaving them to SJA Cadets on Tuesdays had three sick children. I planned to leave Beavers a few minutes early so that I could drop them off on time, but by the time I got out, they were already late.

On Wednesday we reverted to our original plan for Monday (the plan that was done in by the plumber’s early arrival) and had a pyjama day - between suffering the consequences of Jack coughing and spluttering over me for the last few days, and other, erm, womanly business, I was feeling less than energetic. I brightened when we received a letter from Japan, as noted - I was really pleased to get that. And on the subject of Japan, we also signed up for Postcrossing, a sort-of postcard-exchange scheme, and were assigned our first few people that we’ve to send postcards to, and one of them is in Japan. The others are in Finland, Estonia, Germany and France. I’ll have to go and buy postcards now We’re looking forward to seeing where we receive postcards from. I wonder how long it will be before someone creates a blog plugin to show the locations the last few postcards came from

Today, in direct contrast to yesterday, we’ve got loads done already. We were stuck into the books by about 8.30, and as a result, George and Freddy have already finished - they’ve gone off to walk Andie (we’re trying to walk the dogs separately, in the hope they’ll pay less attention to one another and more to us ;-)) Barney has worked hard all morning too, though he still has a bit left to do - catching up on what we haven’t done earlier in the week plus getting ahead of what he’d have done tomorrow if he wasn’t going to spend the day getting ready for Scout Camp this weekend. Yes, it will take all day for him to pack, and no, it shouldn’t take that long, but I know Barney

It’s all very quiet here. Barney is off at Scout Camp - and so is Scratchy. He’s covered Cub Camp before, but never Scout Camp; I suspect this weekend will be the deciding factor in whether he becomes a Leader or not. I think he’d be really good at it: he gets on well with teens and pre-teens, he’s into sports and he loves stuff like camping and canoeing etc. And since he’s likely stuck with driving at least one of his children to Scouts for the next twelve years* he might as well stay between drop-off and pick-up and be some use

*Perhaps it’s bad planning on my part, but I have one child in Scouts, one in Cubs and two in Beavers. At the end of October, one of my Beavers will become a Cub, so it will be 1/2/1. By the time Jack moves to Cubs, Toby will be about ready to start Beavers and Freddy will joining George in Scouts. Oh, and Barney intends to become a Young Leader in a couple of years - I suppose maybe he can drive his brothers in a few years

Not that we looked like we had a clue last night when Barney was packing…how come it’s up to me to know where the pack-list and all the items on it are?

The others are all asleep - Toby with his legs splayed over mine. I’ve done the usual round of visiting bedrooms and turning off lights; in a while I’ll go let the dogs out before they settle for the night, and with any luck the cat will come in at the same time. I’m ready to fall asleep now - starting at about 7.20 a.m., I spent the day tidying and cleaning and realising how much the house needed it. The dining-room, conservatory and living-room were taken apart and dusted and washed and scrubbed and put back together again, and all the floors downstairs were vacuumed and mopped. Upstairs was mostly left alone, apart from Barney’s room which also had the full treatment. I must remember when he comes home on Sunday to seize his kit before it all ends up strewn across the floor.

I did pause briefly in my scrubbing to deal with Freddy, who managed to bang his head on the bathroom door, hard enough to cut his scalp - producing a big bump, but very little blood. And also to deal with Toby, who had been left in the kitchen alone with a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jam - and had gone and got himself a slice of bread and two knives and was attempting to make a pb-jam sandwich, but mostly eating the pb and jam directly from the jar

That’s how many bits of lego I picked up today. But being the forgiving person I am, I still had a play with this after seeing Tim’s version - if I’d the energy I might have done the entire family

George and Freddy’s room looks great, apart from the three boxes of stuff I need to go through (mostly photos, I think). I do feel a bit sorry for Freddy: I think he’s naturally a much tidier person than George (which wouldn’t be difficult!) but he has to put up with sharing with either George (messy) or Jack (not quite so messy but very talkative).

I’ve gone through Jack’s room too - that was on the agenda for tomorrow, but there was so much stuff distributed between the two rooms (like lego!) that it didn’t make any sense to leave it. I’ve also moved Toby’s toys from my room into Jack’s room, and I might move his clothes in there tomorrow too; he’ll eventually sleep in there, so I might as well shift some stuff out of my space.

I’ve also gone through their clothes and put away the summer stuff - very little of which was worn this year - and quite a lot of their remaining clothes. I’ve decided to be really severe about how much clothing I allow them - they all have far more than they need (which is weird, because I buy them very little) and it just adds to the mess. They’ve each got five pairs of trousers left (including at least one pair of jeans, one pair of sweats and one slightly dressier item), five short-sleeved tees, three long-sleeved shirts, four sweaters and four pairs of pyjamas. They did get to choose what they kept out within those limits, but I really hope this improves things with regard to mess and laundry. I’m not sure if the quantities are right, but I can always add or take away if necessary. Just the small stuff to go now - socks, underwear, hats, gloves - argh, I’m too tired to think about it right now.

One question though: why hasn’t anyone invented a battery compartment cover that doesn’t get lost?

Barney and Scratchy are home; both look tired but it seems both had a good time. Apparently Barney’s willingness and determination during the Saturday afternoon hike impressed the Leaders, and although he ate too many sweets and then threw up during the night, he at least managed to get his head out of the tent and over the grass before doing so. The highlight of his weekend seems to have been the abseiling:

Scratchy appears to have been a useful extra adult, much more use now that his warrant application is in since he can actually lead rather than just assisting (in theory, anyway). The other two Leaders left him to it during the abseiling - there were centre staff around, just no other adults from our group.

I spent the day doing yet more cleaning and sorting until they got back. Barney arrived home in good form, tolerated me asking him to try on a few items of clothing so I could put them away in either his room or elsewhere (depending if they fit him), looked upset when called for dinner and said he wasn’t hungry, then decided to eat after all and polished off loads. He cheered up during the meal, then went all quiet and unhappy-looking again when he went upstairs afterwards. I’m not sure what’s going on there; he says nothing happened during the camp, so maybe he’s just very, very tired.

Update: whether it was the cause of his moodiness or not, he was very, very, tired. He’s fast asleep already.